


it's a promise made on the sea

by stickynote_chan



Series: music threads her heart close [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Mostly Fluff, Multi, mild salt, ml salt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-09-27 21:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20414248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickynote_chan/pseuds/stickynote_chan
Summary: “Despite the troubles of the last few days and the short notice of this party, I would like to drink in celebration of…” she pauses, lets the drama build before cheekily grinning at all of them, “this rain and finally getting away from the dastardly heat. I would also like to drink in celebration of our friendship. And, finally, yet most importantly, I would like to drink in celebration of getting Chloé out of our lives! To a school year free from Bourgeois’ Terror! À la vôtre!”--Life moves on and so does Marinette. Along the way, the people she loves also come a long for a ride.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [if you know, you know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427991) by [RenderedReversed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed). 

> To [RenderedReversed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed), the whole cookies+Juleka is entirely inspired by you.

When everyone’s cup is filled with four different types of home made drinks, she clears her throat and her classmates quiet down.

(This group of amazing individuals with all have their differences, with all their uniqueness, with all their own styles, these are the people she can call her _ friends. _ She opens her eyes and she sees a spectrum of so many different colours, each so human she could cry.)

She lifts her mug of hot chocolate and they laugh and raise theirs as well. It’s not traditional by any means but at least no one has water. 

“Despite the troubles of the last few days and the short notice of this party, I would like to drink in celebration of…” she pauses, lets the drama build before cheekily grinning at all of them, “this _ rain _ and finally getting away from the dastardly heat.”

Alya laughs at that and has to balance her glass of strawberry milk before it topples.

“I would also like to drink in celebration of our friendship.”

Nino whoops loudly and might have actually split a quarter of his tea onto the table.

“And, finally, yet most importantly, I would like to drink in celebration of getting Chloé out of our lives! To a school year free from Bourgeois’ Terror! À la vôtre!”

They clink their glasses and cheer. “À la vôtre!”

* * *

“What’s up?” Alya asks later, hand on her hip while the other holds onto a plate of cake.

Slowly, from Ladybug’s continual requests for professional settings, from Alya’s own efforts in perfecting her art, she’s been learning to pick the perfect interview spots, finding the better questions, knowing time and space. So there’s just the two of them at the moment, alone in the room as the others played upstairs.

When the rain stopped for a surprising minute of silence, Rose just about gave them all a collective heart attack when she vaulted up and screamed “_ STARS _!”

Some said they could have some fresh air, others wanted to watch the night sky with Rose or draw it as Nathaniel is no doubt doing.

So the group followed Rose as she raced upstairs onto the balcony, bounding up with about as much energy as a flower blooming in sunlight. Though, Juleka had probably followed so she could romance her girlfriend silly with the line about dying stars she'd been mouthing all month. She's _ such _ a secret sap and Marinette will never say a word because Juleka will actually flip her hair into Marinette’s face for dare suggesting she was anything but most goth.

Instead of going up with them though, Marinette chooses to stay downstairs, cleaning up the dirty dishes, chucking away rubbish and evenly distributing leftovers into labelled containers for her everyone to take home later.

There's places to be, friends to adore and smiles to smile but this emptied living room is lonely, dark and deep.

“Mari,” Alya says, laying a hand on her shoulder with the softest touch.

“Nothing. Nothing's up,” she answers, gathering up the empty plates into the bin. Alya waits, eats her cake, takes a swing of a random glass of strawberry milk and Marinette throws away the trash bag. Sits down. “I told Adrien I loved him.”

“Oookay, I admit, not expecting that,” Alya says and sits down with her. Hands her over the cake because sugar always helps. Fact. “And I’m sensing that there's ‘a more’.”

“I said it in the past tense,” Marinette says and Alya ‘ah’s.

She nods, accepting and ready, and Marinette will _ never _appreciate Alya as anything less than the best. “And is it?”

Marinette sighs; long, slow, letting every second count because this will confirm it and there’s no going back. Three eyes, blue or maybe green, with heads of black or maybe blonde stare at her like the darkest evening of the year.

“Yeah.” Closes her eyes, savouring. “Yeah, I don’t love him, anymore.”

It’s not the dumbest thing she could have said but it’s one of the weirdest because it sounds like she’s sad and _ why is she sad _? Adrien was just a crush and she no longer likes him. That’s normal right? Beside Alix and Max, she’d seen everyone in her class like several different people and then move on when nothing happened or they just stopped liking the other person. She's being overdramatic. She can't stop replaying every conversation in her head.

“Ugh, I sound so stupid,” she says, trying to rub at her eyes as discreetly as she could. It doesn’t do anything. Her hands are wet. “Ugh, _ ugh _.”

But Alya only nudges their shoulders together.

“Hey, the love of your life turned out not to be the one,” she says. “You crazy loved him and now you can mourn that love you lost.”

Marinette cries and it feels like submerging into an ocean current, diving deep into nothing and everything all at once.

Adrien was just a crush. Except it was never _ just _ anything.

It’d been beautiful. It’d been seriously embarrassing and doubly so now that she can reflect on it without being distracted by Adrien’s face. She kind of wants to crawl into a hole and never come up again. But, despite the crippling mortification, it’d been beautiful.

And now it was over.

Alya sits by her and only gives tissues even when Marinette thinks she will burst into ten thousand questions. It’s fine, Marinette doesn’t know how to describe every feeling she’s swept up in. Doesn’t really want to talk, either. It’s not her way.

She clears her snot and wipes her eyes, and only sniffles a little bit between breaths. It’s over. Throwing away her tissues, she sighs like it’s been a breath she’s been holding in for too.

Alya pushes more cake onto her plate and they eat in a silence fringed like a destination between wood and lakes.

She sniffles and cries and sobs but even then those eventually quiet and they sit in a silence soft and slow.

“You good?” Alya says, finally.

“Y-Yeah.” It had taken one year and one minute to let go of Adrien Agreste but now she has. "Yeah, I’m good. Or, at least, I will be.”

Alya smiles, creases her eyes into crinkled happiness for her. “Then, it’ll be fine.”

Marinette smiles back and nudges her. “When did you get so good at this?"

Alya laughs and it sounds a lot like a thousand circling winds. It sounds a lot like reflection.

"Not that long ago," she admits, holding her hands to herself as she speaks. "I used to think I was in the right and everything I did was for the greater good. But, not that long ago, Ladybug- well, she gave me… a _lesson_ and I finally realised the responsibility I hold.”

Marinette knows how much a Spirit’s connection can change a person, how much protecting Paris could scoop away layers of someone. It’d been barely an hour. It’d been enough time to change her best friend.

“Responsibility?” she asks because Alya sounds like she’d been bottling this up. Because it's a privilege to be the friend who gets to hear the words bowling over in Alya’s head. Because if Marinette could give Paris everything in her bones, she’d give Alya every second she has to listen.

"I've been reading books from professional journalists, from people who've reported it all." She explains to Marinette, about the interviews from those on the front line, from those in a country of corruption, from those who knows they will be silenced permanently but will still stand up and call out their governments. There's a growing stack neatly aligned on a shelf higher than her sisters could reach.

She finishes up the conversation by sipping the rest of her strawberry milk and swirling the empty glass between her hands before she looks up at Marinette and says, "I should have realised it so much earlier but Paris is being _ terrorised _ and, with the popularity of the Ladyblog, I have a duty to report it professionally. I can't tell you how, but Ladybug taught me that. I started learning about what's really important and I was so wrong, Marinette. It's not her identity, it never should have been about her identity."

* * *

The stars are far and distant in the skies. Rare in the light pollution of Paris. Rain clouds barely passed. The tang of moisture in the air.

It’s wonderful to be alive.

* * *

For the rest of the week, she goes home with each of the girls to their homes, bringing a measuring tape and complaining about the moody weather and wondering when the on-and-off rain will finally stop.

Despite their bugging and nudging to open her sketchbook for them to see, she keeps her lips curled into a secretive smile, redirecting the conversation into talks about homework and future outings.

The conversation about Adrien is easier than expected. Marinette chalks it up to therapeutically sobbing her eyes out to Alya. And it _ is _... nice to say “I don’t like Adrien” without feeling like the world was collapsing.

Not to mention the disappointed look he gives to the class whenever they brush by each other in school. Well, _ that _ certainly can kill off any feelings. And it’s definitely no coincidence when it’s constantly aimed at Marinette.

When Alix notices it the first time, she comments that he probably picked it from his Dad and then turns around and, in predictable Alix-fashion, actually hollers “Oi, Agreste did you pick up that ‘I’m ashamed of you’ look from your Dad?” right into Adrien’s face.

Adrien stares, gobsmacked, at them as Kim “Oohs.”

But Marinette waves them off. “Come on guys, don’t go that far." She slants her eyes at her once-crush and can't help but feel the crippling taste of sadness. "But, honestly, please stop with the judgement, Adrien.”

It’s the last time most of them have talked to their former classmate.

Eventually, the idle gossip of girl time turns to what’s going to happen to the Former Bustier Class. Which is always fun to speculate. Because it’s still taking several weeks to set anything into place.

There’s an ongoing Adult Talk that none of them are privy to. For now, the class is paired up with M. D'Argencourt and M. Haprèle picks up their French and literature classes. When told she might transfer to Mme. Mendeleiev, Chloé throws a fit about needing Mme. Bustier and, despite a whole class walking out on her, nepotism works wonders in corruption. There's some talk about new teachers but M. Damocles is being very stingy about budget or some such nonsense.

Marinette has witnessed (for now) four separate occasions where her Maman had slammed the dough down onto the table and said owls would be lovely to bake. Alya reassures her it was normal, handing over a violently owl-themed lunch box.

The video of Captain Couffaine smashing an empty lipstick tube is an instant hit. Juleka bows to the group.

The subsequent paper mache owl getting sliced in half would have easily been as rad if not for a certain aspect.

About halfway through the video, Luka is heard giggling in the background and Marinette narrows her eyes.

“What’s up?” Juleka behind the camera says, sighing.

“Le hibou, more like hi-hi-hidieu!” he eventually says, laughing outright._ “Owlch, _ that hurts, Jules.”

Juleka swings the camera around to his form, which happens to be now sprawled out on the deck, and laughing like a maniac. She flips the camera over and records herself rolling her eyes. 

**Luka**  
  
1:43 PM  
**Luka: **Hoot Hoot, Marinette  
  
**Luka: **Are you free today?  
  
**Marinette: **Yep, see you after school?  
  
**Marinette: **Those are OWLFUL puns  
  
**Luka: **Ah, truly, you’re a wonder to the world <3

Eventually, she gets each boy's measurements too. Starting with Luka, of course.

The week after, she and Alya go together to Nino's home to get his measurements and his mother gives them a gigantic feast, each dish about three times the normal serving size. It's terribly nostalgic.

* * *

They'd been about halfway through their walk around Paris, picking up each member of Kitty Section through a circling, slightly meandering pathway, slow with the heat fuzzing the air and the lethargy of a nice, warm day, when the skies decides to throw a fit. Again.

But before that, at noon, Juleka wonders into the bakery looking like an avenging Maiden of Death and giving every customer a jumpscare when they turn around and suddenly realise she's there. Maman calls her an absolute delight.

"You look wicked awesome," Marientte says, coming forward and kissing her cheeks. "How long did it take?"

Juleka curls her lips and complete disgust melds impeccably on her lilac lipstick. "It took three hours to just get this corset on right because Maman was out with her girlfriend and Luka was in his zen mode."

Marinette gives her a very sympathetic pat on the back. “Come over next time and I’ll help.” She winks. "I'm a deft hand with knots."

Before they completely step outside, Papa quickly gives her an umbrella with a warning about rain in the afternoon, a kiss on the cheek, and a box of freshly made pastries he’d probably spent all morning planning, carefully selecting out each of her friend’s favourite treat, before rushing back to work.

"Your father is the best," Juleka says and then, because she's an actual Maiden of Death, "If you marry Luka, does that mean I get free Dupain-Cheng cookies for life?"

Marinette chokes on her choux à la crème and, predictably, Juleka steals the cookies as soon as Marinette gives her the chance.

"Your brother and I aren't even dating," Marinette wheezes out, has to stop her heart from racing out of her chest because she hasn't even thought about Luka and Marriage and why does it bother her so much when she'd planned so many futures with Adrien in her infatuation?

"Hmm,” is all Juleka says and Marinette shoves the thought all the way back to the pits of her mind.

Juleka stares at her with eyes of piling snow and smiles a cat-like smile unlike a cheshire; an easy curl of her lilac lips more ambiguous than real.

She reaches up and brushes a hair behind Marinette's ear and leads the conversation away. "Maman found some vintage corsets. I was thinking of spicing them up with roses."

Corsets, right, okay, Marinette can do corsets.

Juleka polishes off a third of a dozen cookies as they meet up with Mylène at her house.

Mylène looks between the two of them, at the stack of sweets in Juleka's hand and her slightly wild red eyes before choosing her battles and focusing on Marinette.

"Marinette," Mylène says. "Stop her before she gets sick."

“_ Never _,” Juleka says and Marinette can almost imagine her hair spiking off her shoulders like an angry black cat.

Marinette pockets the image, hides a smile and shrugs.

“You heard her,” she says, handing Mylène her chocolate éclair as truce.

“Where’s Ivan?” Juleka cooly asks when she’s assured neither Mylène nor Marinette will take away her cookies. "I'd thought he'd be with you."

“Ah, he said he'll be at his dad’s-”

There's a scream of terror so shrill and horrible it leaves only a chilling understanding of human mortality ingrained into the soul and Mylène and Marinette both turn to Juleka who casually takes out her phone. It’s still screaming.

"I can't believe that's still your ringtone," Mylène says.

And Marinette says, "I can't believe there's still something in you that actually thinks she'd ever change it."

Apparently, Rose is with Alix and Nathaniel getting ice cream at the new ice cream parlour with ‘lots and lots of rainbows and unicorns and Aesthetic and I’m going to run out of battery and storage space before I take enough pictures, please come with extra power bank in like an hour’ and had just messaged Juleka to take their time before they picked her up for band practice.

“Think Ivan’s dad will let us play Mecha Strike?”

Ivan’s dad, after splitting the Dupain-Cheng croissant with his son, does not let them play Mecha Strike because the baby was sleeping but lets them each take a skull pin from his collection so he’s still one of cool parents.

With the unexpected free time to spare, they, _ obviously _, take a good hour of getting distracted by every shop that even twinkled a tiny fancy before realising they were running horribly late to meet up with Rose.

Marinette has to be dragged away from three different fabric stores but Ivan and Juleka spend thirty minutes at the vintage shop they spotted when they were awkwardly trying to get Marinette to stop crying about not having enough money for good fabrics. Doesn't mean she didn't still grab a metre of crêpe to take home.

Mylène and Marinette step away when the other two finally find the horror section and, with a mutual nod, the two of them went to the book section.

Between the shelves of a few thousand dusty books, it feels like the hush of a secret world as they step around and Marinette can't help but run her hand along the spines of each book. They feel like worn stories.

"How are you?" Mylène asks suddenly, breaking the silence and the spell of silence. Her eyes are turned towards the bookshelf because she's going to be a world class politician one day but, most of all, because she's one of the sweetest person Marinette knows. Because this is a loaded answer and they can both feel sense the whispering skeletons between them. “With all that's happened.”

"It's been different," she says, eventually. This isn’t a conversation she’d thought she’d ever have with Mylène. Of course, she’s her friend and vice versa, close enough to share crushes and memories. But they haven’t been the type to have long conversations without the rest of the group. "It’s a little strange, honestly."

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, Chloé-" she stops, breathes in, runs her hand against the books again and again, "I’ve been with Chloé since école maternelle, you know? The same class all the way up to, well, this year I guess.”

“Wait, really?” Mylène looks up at her with wide eyes and Marinette forgets sometimes how little some of her friends know.

“Crazy, right?” she says, smiling but she knows it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Ten years with that girl." She shakes her head of those buried memories. "So, I guess it’s just strange that she’s not there and I’m actually free of her.”

“At least in class,” Mylène says and sighs because Chloé was incapable of leaving any of their classmates alone outside of the class period.

“Well, we can’t stop her from being an awful person,” Marinette says and rolls her eyes. “That’s what the adults are there for.”

“Supposedly,” Mylène says and shakes her head. “But, I wasn’t just talking about Chloé, you know?" She pauses and looks at Marinette with sad, dropping eyes that tell her before she opens her mouth. "Is Adrien still giving you looks?”

“Adrien?” Marinette pauses because she hadn’t expected that at all. She'd thought Mylène was going to talk about Luka and her and their little relationship, that's what everyone had been whispering about lately. Not Adrien. No one has really talked about him in her presence since she’s confessed her feelings. He's a tumbled thought in her head because she had loved him, had cherished him deeply, but now there's mysteries and plots and so many things lost between them. Master Fu still hadn't called for her either. “Not since Alix called him out on it. Why?" she asks, frowning. "Has he still been talking to you?”

“No." Mylène shakes her head, unconvincingly. "Don’t worry about it," she says, unconvincingly. "It’s good that he’s been leaving you alone.” She smiles, unconvincingly. “Don’t worry about it, Marinette. It’s nothing.”

Marinette is very, very unconvinced but before she can say anything about it Nathaniel's ringtone plays.

He’s calling because Rose’s phone did die and his amused “Where’d you guys hole up in?” with Rose screaming “HI JULEKA, MARINETTE, MYLÈNE, IVAN” in the background has her scrambling to get the rest.

They break about ten different social etiquette and probably a law or two but, when finally get to Rose with a thousand apologies, she only greets each of them with a sweet beaming smile.

"Don't be so sad, I had so much fun with Nathaniel and Alix!" she says because she's actually a tiny ball of adorableness and happiness. When Marinette hands over her macarons, she levels up and becomes a giant ball of cuteness. "Oh Dupain-Cheng's, yummy!" With her mouth stuffed, she grins and mumbles out a sweet, "Thank you!"

"No worries," Marinette says and smiles as Rose splits her share with Juleka.

“Anyway, time for band practice, _yes_!” Rose exclaims, jumping up and down.

And so they head on their way with Rose leading the charge.

They’re halfway to Juleka’s house when the sky cracks open and unleashes a tsunami on them. Where does it even store up all that moisture?

“Why rain,” Mylène mumbles and Marinette _ feels _ for her as they leg it across Paris then the Liberty's deck, aiming for the relatively dry greenhouse-fashioned area and dreading the definitely not-dry backend of the houseboat.

She feels for Mylène but at least _ she _ has a cute boyfriend slinging his jacket over the both of them and a warm body to ward off the rain’s freezing chip damage.

A sudden gust of wind and Marinette now has to try not to skid across the wooden planks as well as fly off into the sky as she clamps both hands onto her umbrella. Recentre body mass. Brace the knees. Don’t fall.

Fail.

She slips and slams into the wall and can only feel betrayed.

Ivan grabs her too and the three of them manage to reach where Juleka and Rose are waiting for them in the safety of stairway.

She trails behind the other band members as they descend below deck, chucking her umbrella aside to drip above deck before she shuts the door. The wind picks up and slams loud and reverberating in the narrow space.

_ Ouch _.

Rubbing her ears and still dripping wet and cold, she stumbles into the Couffaine’s living room feeling about as happy as a flushed away bug but she sees him immediately, eyes drawn to his figure just as he looks up to her. Magnetic.

“Marinette,” he says.

His face lights up and it's only fair, her heart is lighting up at the sight of him as well.

Legs smoothing out from a meditating pose, he stands up and comes to meet her, welcoming the others on the way with quick greetings and prepared towels. When he finally leans down to press his lips to her cheek, she reciprocates the faire la bise and enjoys the way he leads them back onto the couch by offering his hand to her first. The feel of his ring against her skin brings a little fire to her fingers and she feels happy again already.

The warm towel he ruffles her head with really just does it for her.

She sits on the edge of the couch, facing the small band area, and he pulls up a stool to face her with a bright smile.

The others start setting up their equipment with one hand, their other hands still drying themselves down, with various degrees of subtle peeking ranging from Ivan’s unabashed staring to Rose's shy glances before she turns away to giggle into her hands. Marinette pretends not to notice.

“Salut, Luka,” she says instead, giving him her full attention because, if she didn't, she'd probably do something dire. Like acknowledge her ridiculous friends. “Juleka invited me over but I guess I’m the one to forget to text today.”

“_ Hey _ , those are my bad habits, _ droit d’Couffaine _. Or ‘Couffaine-righted’, as the English would say.” She snorts and his laughter rings, twinkling warm. “But it's cool. I didn’t know it’d be today,” he says and it’d have been fine just like that with her still laughing at his horrible puns but, of course, he then goes and continues, “It’s always lovely to see you again, Marinette.”

He says it like they haven’t been texting everyday for the past month, like they haven’t gone to José for another choker for every week since she’s cleared up her schedule and they haven’t already planned out another outing for next week. Like this was their first conversation in too long a time and it’s a miracle of a meteor shower for him to see her everytime.

It’s a pool of hot chocolate sliding down her throat and, miracles, does her heartbeat melt for him.

“Same with you,” she says, cheeks bursting with a blush and the grin spreading across her face.

“I’m glad.”

Strolling past with a bottle of water and freshly applied makeup, Juleka rolls her eyes from behind her brother and gives Marinette a deadpan look of judgement whilst tilting her head towards Luka.

_ My brother is so ungoth, woe is me _, she says with that alone.

Without even looking, Luka reaches behind him, catches a clump of Juleka’s hair and smooshes it across her face.

“_ Suffer _,” Juleka says, flipping her hair back into place and it’s definitely on purpose when it whacks into the back Luka's head.

He smiles.

“Practice time!” Rose shouts, hopping up and down as she grabs her mic and starts a vocal run, bumbling in just in time before the two start a sibling war.

Luka stands up and nudges into Juleka who flips him off.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Fu is old.
> 
> Marinette does not know how old but the details don’t matter; it will not matter because she will not be told. Not unless it is required. But, it is simple. He is old. Older than anyone she knows or has brushed pass on the streets or seen in the media. Older than a human should age.
> 
> There is a bygone century in his eyes.

Master Fu is old.

Marinette does not know how old but the details don’t matter; it will not matter because she will not be told. Not unless it is required. But, this fact at least is simple. He is old. Older than anyone she knows or has brushed pass on the streets or seen in the media. Older than a human should age.

There is a bygone century in his eyes.

He says it is due to his good lifestyle of regular exercise and a balanced diet and, while it may be true, they both know it is far from the whole truth. The Turtle Miraculous is too stark a white against his thin wrist. Wayzz too prominent a presence in his small, quiet life.

She wonders how many once living have wondered pass him and into a realm none human can return from. How many strangers have lived in his lifetime? How many of those have been ones he had nursed in his heart, cradled conversations with, held in his arms? How many does he still remember?

(How many Miraculous Users has he chosen to burden?)

But there's forgetfulness in his actions. Already, within the first three visits, has Marinette understood the fragility of a human mind, even one melded with Spirit. The flesh is weak, the mind is limited, the soul tires. Such soft, weak humans they all are.

(Has he forgotten any of the chains he’s laced around ignorant necks?)

When he forgot about the already poured tea set and prepared another pot, it had been the first visit between Master Fu, Guardian of the Miracle Box, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Bearer of the Ladybug Miraculous, and she did not comment on his actions beyond complimenting the deliciousness of the hot drink. It’s for naught, anyway, he spotted the first set on his way back from the kitchen. She had gathered the delicacy of the matter when he hunched down, hand too controlled to shake, too blessed, and took away the teapot. Steps measured as he went to pour it out steadily into the drain.

There was no change in his serene expression through the rest of the meeting but Marinette had grown up with Sabine Cheng as her Maman. She knows tranquility so still, a pebble would not even cause ripples if thrown in. Master Fu is not Sabine Cheng. Even so, she need only stare at Wayzz and see the calm, expected smile to know. In the Kwami’s eyes she can see the bemusement of an otherworldly.

Forgotten keys have become a part of Ladybug’s solo patrol.

(_ Lock picking. _ Again.)

But now, on this particularly sunny French day, she is trying to remember his instructions on a tea ceremony. She is not old.

First, she fills hot water into a plain brown teapot she knows certain museum curators would have paid several hundred Euros for. With slow hands, she places the filter on and transfers its whole content into the pitcher. Waiting for a single, gentle second, she takes the pitcher and submerges two brown teacups along with slender aroma smelling cups in the hot liquid. With the remaining water, she gently spills the rest of the unfinished liquid over the brown teapot and then, with the slightest halting movements, splashes the rest across the wooden tea board. Taking the teacups and, finally, the aroma smelling cups, she drains everything evenly along the board as well.

When she had first witnessed Master Fu’s actions, she had been surprised, confused by what he was doing and even now still thinks it’s a waste. There lingers incomprehension about _ why _ but Master Fu had murmured something vaguely like it will keep his board and teapot from drying, about restoration and a part of the culture. Traditions, he had said and it rings in her head to this day. She’s still confused even as she follows his actions.

With the wooden scoop, she carefully measures out and adds the dry tea leaves into the teapot. They're a funny little shape, one she has never known tea could look like. A circular looking green plants that look particularly cute. She pours the hot water, takes the teapot and repeats everything now with the tea-infused water instead. This includes spilling everything out.

(_ What a waste_, she thinks and keeps hidden behind a passive stoicism of Ladybug.)

Once again, she refills the teapot but, this time, allows it to overflow the tiniest bit, the tea sliding down the sides as she puts on the tea lid and then lets it seep for a quiet minute.

Master Fu keeps his lips sealed and expression neutral and she follows his lead, sitting statue stiff as she breathes. The room is slowly expanding with the scent of hot tea leaves like expensive incense burnt long before she came home. As is tradition, they do not talk in these ceremonies.

Finally, she counts to ‘soixante bateaux bateaux’ in her head and copies her earlier actions. Except this time, she doesn’t pour into the teacups and, instead, only fills the aroma smelling cup. Once everything is properly filed, she takes Master Fu’s aroma smelling cup first and places the teacup on top of it before flipping it over and gently lifting it. Dexterous baker fingers.

Across from her, on the other side of his small wooden table, Master Fu sits daintily on a short stool, watching with silent lips but loud eyes as she wipes his teacup and the aroma smelling cup with a towel before settling it in front of him.

She finishes up her own cup and they both take a slow moment to smell the scent of a particularly strong green tea. Outside his little studio home, the world rushes on in boisterous call of a bustling city. It doesn’t do anything to drain out the hum in her ears, in the silence of this too small apartment home. Eternity comes and goes in this world behind closed doors, this suspended space of Spirits and humans. Kwami and Chosen.

“Good,” he says at last after taking a sip of his tea. Settling the tea cup down, he taps his index finger on the table. There is significance in the action but it only claws open the glaring gap of nothing in her mind. She does not understand the world he comes from and she knows he is saddened by this in particular.

It is in the same way Adrien had been saddened when he learnt about her heritage and immediately spoken in rapidfire Mandarin. Only halfway through his speech, had he finally looked up and seen her confused face, mouth formed in a crooked line of confusion even as she tried not to let her eyes show the exhaust flumes suffocating in her chest. He ripped off the rest of his sentence, allowed it to scatter into stilted silence as he awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, his surprisingly honest face marred with an ugly disappointment he had not been quick enough to hide. He quickly smiled beatifically, perfectly. Sunlight in each gleaming teeth, perfectly rosy lips spread wide around a model’s smile. Murmuring in French, how it was cool she was half-Chinese. Turned away.

Even then, when she had been distracted by _ adrien, adrien, adrien _, she felt the urge to cry.

She is half-Chinese, yes. She is quarter-Italian, yes. She is quarter-Gallic, yes. What of it? _ What of it _? Yes, yes, yes. She doesn’t speak it. Any of it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. She doesn’t know. She’s never known.

She wants to scream now. Doesn’t, because she knows she’ll never stop if she did. Not until her vocals are tender, her voice is blood, her horror ends but it will never end. And she will still weep. In spite, in exhaustion, in despair.

Her Papa had never brought anything but a Parisian life to Marinette’s upbringing, does not mention his Gallic father nor speak too much with Marinette’s Italian Nonna even when she does visit. Following his footsteps, her Maman has never opened the door to the tightly kept whispers in her heart. Never answered what the characters in littered around Quartier Asiatique might mean. Never mentioned the backdrop of her childhood memories even as she stopped every so often and stared West at the setting sun against the harsh embrace of red marred skies. Only burns incense in Marinette’s absence and the evidence was only in the ashes and already faint smell wafting out the open window.

There are stories shared between Adults and she won’t be told like who, like how, like why but she doesn’t care for them. She _ doesn’t _.

“You’ve done very good for your first time on your own,” he says, finally stops tapping.

There is meaning and etiquette in these ceremonies. There’s character and symbolism in every move, every second, every tick she might show in her expression. It is a language as foreign as Mandarin. She doesn’t know what her actions might mean or show him but she accepts his words because the hum is loud and everpresent, anyway. Nods her head.

“Thank you,” she says over the rim of her teacup. The taste is as strong as the aroma.

“Do you know what this tea is called?” he asks and she gestures negative. “You may have noticed it already, but it has quite the curious little shape and so it is called Green Snail Spring. In our language, it is one called 碧螺春.”

“Biluochun?” she tries softly, reluctant lips forming around each syllable like series of nasty stings. Her mouth is awkward and the word leaves a strange taste on the back of her throat, mixing perfectly into the traditionally prepared Biluochun; a blend too inexplicable to extract and replicate. The air around her tongue feels empty. Even so, this is expected of her. Not in his words, not in any form of verbal request or expectations but it is longing curled in his quiet gaze and Marinette can’t bring herself to hurt Master Fu.

A part of her laments this, raises high pitched whistles of objections, says he doesn’t deserve her good will, not with the chains he’s given her but it’s not a matter of deserving. Marinette is not a saint but Ladybug is a superhero. Protector of Paris. Saviour of everyone. Even the one who had blessed her with this title.

(Fourteen years old. She wonders how young Master Fu had been.)

But sometimes it boils down to this: if she can, she will.

“Yes, yes, good pronunciation,” he says, smiling at her in a terribly familiar yet distant way. She wants to know who he sees when he looks at her, which memory clouds his eyes in such melancholy. Guides his lips in so much fondness. “You are improving.”

She’s not. She hasn’t picked up a Mandarin book since she was four and Maman still called her Uncle regularly instead of when he had a seldom case of random visits. There is too much rot now in her head for her to casually speak Mandarin. It has always been her Mother’s country, her Mother’s secret language, and the film of _quiet_, keep silent, lingers even when Marinette still knows the basics, the easy ones even tourists would know. But she can’t leave them even if she wanted to. They're forged into her tongue, white hot brands tracing the edges of foreign-familiar characters. And yet, instead of 谢谢, she still only says, “Thank you.”

Master Fu is old.

Some days, he calls out to her in the wrong language, speaks whole conversations in Mandarin before he remembers and looks at her in the same way Adrien had. Today, he doesn’t need to forget to look at her like that.

* * *

“What do you believe, Marinette?” he asks later when the tea is finished, every sip savoured, every scent enjoyed. Every tradition honoured.

She takes a deep breath but not to suffocate, only to prepare for the formation of the script in her mind. An actress ready to play her part. This is _ purpose _. "I think that there's a connection between Hawk Moth and Adrien Agreste."

He hums but doesn't comment, only waves for her to continue.

"There…" She stops and contemplates her thoughts, eventually shaking her head as she continues, "There has been some personality changes in the last few months. I believe there are hidden circumstances affecting his thoughts and actions that might imply unfavourable connections to the Hawk Moth. In particular, a conspicuous development for 'redemption' has taken place. Admittedly, it is something I have only now noticed in light of recent events and after a conversation with his best friend. His best friend has also told me this has notably transpired only after I took the Miraculous Book- sorry, the Grimoire from Adrien’s possession."

He smiles and, in its stretch, it says, _ 'Ah yes, the Grimoire. And what do you think of that? _'

No reassurances. No opinions. Distant guidance.

There are words buzzing in her head, shivering like springtime wasps since she's talked to Nino, to Adrien, and she knows there is no purpose in subtleties. Here, in the presence of Guardian, she is allowed to be both Ladybug and Marinette. This is a carefully constructed system, built for her thoughts to wander through at her own accord. This is her role. Inevitable.

It is why she says, "It is possible he found it quite innocently. A random stroke of luck but we both know that matters of the Miraculous are not so coincidental. It might be it had been a possession of his home and he hadn't known the significance of it, thereby bringing it out on that day and allowing us to take it. But that only raises the question of why would it be in his home in the first place. For this, there are two possibilities."

She flicks her thumb up. "One, it is a, uh, 'trinket' his family had picked up coincidentally after it had been lost. If he is to be believed, Gabriel Agreste told me it was a gift from his late wife when I returned it to him.

"Or two," she puts up her forefinger and doesn't dare stop, "it is as we originally guessed, the owner of the book holds the Butterfly Miraculous and Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste."

"Hoh," he says, at last, staring at her before smiling like a particularly pleased teacher. "But did we not dismiss the notion?"

"I was misguided my own bias for Adrien Agreste and quickly dismissed the notion out of haste without seriously contemplating the issue," she admits, slow and careful, and the words are raw wounds. Marinette and Ladybug. What was a superhero who couldn’t accept mistakes? (A dead one.) "The Collector was indeed M. Agreste but that does not absolve other possibilities. Like all others, the Butterfly Miraculous works in a pair.”

“Good,” he says like he had with the tea. “It is wonderful that you have already achieved this level on your own.”

_ Ah _.

Sinking down into the couch as Master Fu explains, Marinette wonders when the Spirits would stop leading her through destiny. Carefully constructed systems. There are walls so high around her in this maze, she can’t even see the sky, can only taste the string pulling her along.

Master Fu explains and she wonders, in matters of the Miraculous, would she ever have a path not transcribed since the explosion of the birth star, since the particles formed and the atoms eventually stitched into the creation of her?

Something whispers inside her and she knows it’s the inhuman one in her spirit marked bones, the one that tastes like dust and waiting, the one that sings in her blood and rings like a dying fantasy, the one that pulls her ears down with her earrings. Something whispers inside her and it sounds like laughter.

* * *

“Can I tell you something?” she asks, quiet and solemn, and he stops playing immediately, hears the wavering note in her voice. Tikki will look at her later and there will be no kindness in her eyes. Marinette is prepared to break under those clear unblinking eyes of a God, to suffer a gentle Kwami’s displeasure, because she is crumbling, will break sooner or later, and she wants _him_ to bear witness to her shattering. This is her choice.

He looks up at her and nods, equally quiet and far more accepting than she deserves.

“Anything,” he says and she believes it, knows it as the no strings attached, open invitation it is.

The rocking of the houseboat becomes the lull between her words and she struggles to breathe, to fit the words on her tongue. Compressing the worries onto the fit of her teeth. It feels like being bitten to pieces. But she opened this conversation. She opened the door to her mind and she will drag herself through, piece by piece.

“Sometimes,” she struggles out, heartbeat a little louder in her ears, a little louder than the ever-present hum. But it's a start and she can do a lot with a start. “Sometimes, I don’t feel like myself? No, no.” She shakes her head, scrambles the words in it for the right ones and he waits, patient as the moon for its turn in the skies.

“No, that’s not right. I…” her breath stops. “I don’t feel-” her voice stumbles but finally, _ finally _ she whispers it out, “I'm not _ human, _ not completely. Because- Because there's this _ something _ in me and I know it should be an honour, a revelation, but it feels _ wrong _ and _ foriegn _ , and it's been twisting me up into some _ thing _ , and I can't claw it out, can't get rid of it and I-" she closes her eyes, sighs, lets her breath stop, "-I feel so, so tired, Luka. I haven't felt human for so long. I haven't _ been _ human, not since I was thirteen. I'm not Marinette Dupain-Cheng, she’s dead and gone and I'm this weird inhuman _ thing _ that's taken that thirteen year old girl's place.”

The hum is gone.

They're out, they're out. The words have crawled out. The hum is gone.

There's silence in her head and it sits foreign and indomitable. The hum is gone.

There's stillness in her ears and it lays its feet on her stomach. And the hum is gone.

And it's so deeply ironic but she wants the hum back. She wants it back so _ badly _, she's willing to beg on her knees for Tikki to bring it back.

His fingers pluck at the guitar strings absentmindedly, and it brings noise back to her life; something blue and his favourite. She looks up at him and he starts strumming out the song he still hasn't named, the one of rivers flowing and connecting. It’s the song he’s been practicing with her whenever they’re out together and no one else there. He’s churning the words through his head as he plays. It's there in the extra semiquavers as his mind gets stuck on a thought.

She lets her breath out and holds herself in her arms, waits for him too.

He ends on a quiet note, pink and _ Marinette _, before he holds out his hand for her and she takes it between two heartbeats, slots her fingers between his and spins his ring with that alone.

After settling their hands on his knee, he finds his words just as she did.

"You_ are _ human, Marinette," he says, simply and those four simple words shouldn't be enough. It shouldn't have just taken his simple acknowledgement. It is.

He takes his other hand and curls it against her face, fingers taking away her tears just as they drip.

It undoes her, completely. Absolutely. Every crevice of her heart is bending for him.

“Thank you,” she says and he lips curve up into the glimmers of a crescent moon.

She places her hand on his cheek, and they're mirrors of each other. Because despite his smile, his breath is stuttering. He feels the heat in her palm as much as she feels cool in his fingertips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long for this chapter to be written, I was struggling a lot with my mental health and Master Fu really makes me sad and angry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breathing is harder.

Breathing is harder.

When she had thought of Hawk Moth, she’d thought of a shadowy figure with an unfamiliar face; the genericness of a stranger. Or the image of cruelty, of harshness, of someone depraved of moral questioning and only selfish understandings.

Each and every Akuma victim flashes through her mind and Marinette suffers through the memories of all their confused, bewildered gaze. The tinge of fear, the taste of regret, the pain-stricken panic as they turn around and shout for their beloveds.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” they say.

Hawk Moth; an emotional manipulator, a harvester of others’ misfortunes for the sake of his own blessings.

So isn’t it fitting?

Gabriel Agreste, Hawk Moth, Gabriel Agreste, _ Hawk Moth _.

Knowing doesn’t make it easier, suspecting makes it harder. Adrien makes her more palms clammy in an achingly familiar and yet dreadfully unfamiliar way and she snaps her head away before sunlight makes her head spin with too many eye-clawing thoughts.

_ Did. He. Know? _

Across the courtyard, sliding through the corridors, wandering out the school gates. Gaze locked firmly on Alya, on Nino, on anyone else but him, him, him. Even Chloé’s ever present, ever bitter sneer is better.

Her hands are trembling, shaking uncontrollably, each of her fingers shivering as if there's frostbite awaiting her, and her mind is screaming accusations after accusations; Why_ redemption _ ? Was it only Chloé’s? Or were you _ practicing _ ? _ Why- _ But she can’t jump to them because she’s Ladybug and Marinette and if either of them jumped wrong, it feels like the whole world is going to burn and she’s the matchstick and the arsonist.

She has to think, think, think before she can act. Responsibility, guardianship. Walls held in the tiny grasp of Tikki’s smiling eyes. Like stepping into a forest and the trees were twining around her neck, enmeshed in a spirit’s tightening silence.

So she keeps her mouth shut, her eyes averted, and avoids.

It’s easier than it should be. It’s not even a conscious effort, they barely interact, he never calls her out, and she doesn’t realise it’s weird until Nino complains about constant getting called out to talks circle around nowhere and always, _ always _ ends in frustrated sighs and ‘maybe next time’. It’s expected; Nino and Adrien were best friends.

And then Alya mentions similar talks, a little sniff and a roll of her eyes as she relays, verbatim, his words of Chloé getting better and ‘can’t they all just be friends?’

And then Rose pipes up about Adrien talks about joining the band and bringing Chloé and the rest of Kitty Section shrugs and says definitely not.

Mylène turns to look at her with a single eye-boring glance.

And only then does Marinette wonder just for the briefest, longest second; Hadn’t she been his friend?

But then she remembers, _ ah _.

Even if he held her under responsibility, under expectations, he’d never been anything more than an awkward friend to her old awkward self. She’d just been the catalyst to the _ imbalance _of his happy classroom. They’d never been closer than classmates, than temporary teammates, class president to reign in Chloé. Strung maybe a day or two together and wasn’t that it? He’d been her life and she’d been a side note in his.

She draws the thought into an angry little, hurt-filled scribble of vicious lines and no planning and …

Lets it go because she has to. Because she’s learnt how to a long ago. Because there’s battles she can and will fight but this one has long since been over and there’s no power to be found in this sinking slope. She’s just late to realise.

In the end, the question is:

What does she do if he had known and done nothing? It was his father but it was Hawk Moth. One for the sake of everyone else.

She doesn't have the answer but it's a bridge burning under her feet and the smoke is suffocating.

And yet, breathing is easier.

There, through the flames, through the shaking, she can reach out and grab onto the other side and there’s people already reaching through the blaze for her.

Alya holds her hand when she burns the scribbled up ball of negativity.

She hasn’t used the Burning Box or rather the incense burner since the end of cinquième.

And then they make it final because Alya has always encouraged her and they burn every single Adrien reminder Marinette had kind of stacked and forgotten under her desk. It's almost cathartic to rip them into tiny little shreds and then watch them curl away into ash like saying goodbye. Her best friend doesn’t say anything but squeeze her nostrils together with the hand not gripping Marinette’s as tight as Marinette clings onto her and complains about smoke in her hair. But she hip-checks Marinette when she tries to apologise and says,

“Of course, I’ll be there for you girl.”

And it’s even more perfect when she adds, “Burning stuff is seriously fun, though. We should totally burn our school books.”

Later, the girls all paint her nails, spending about ten minutes bickering who gets which nail even though Juleka ends up hogging her both her hands anyways. She paints each fingernail in a shade of suspiciously familiar teal with a practiced double swipe coat and Marinette doesn’t mind because it’s beautiful and because Juleka smiles up at her with an honest curl to her lips that glimmers.

Rose loves it as much as Marinette does and they spend the rest of the afternoon working out three different outfits to match because Marinette loves fashion and Rose loves adorability. Marinette finds the blue beret combo particularly fetching and it's only a small coincidence when Luka’s wristband is gorgeous with it too.

And speaking of him, Luka thumbs along the back of her hand and, inadvertently, shows off their matching wristbands as he leads her to and through the wondering streets of Paris. They’ve accidentally colour-coordinated and she’s been silently gushing about it in her head the whole day as she blushes and smiles at him like a loon, completely trusting him to lead her right as she bubbles up with the thought of fashion and _matching_.

He surprises her with a reserved table for two and there’s no roses, no candlelight, no moon and Paris at night to backdrop two people kind of, almost, maybe in love.

She’s still tangling out her thoughts and her feelings, and her responsibilities makes it a measure of her juggling skills. It feels like she’s taking advantage of Luka’s good will and patience and she _ doesn’t _ want it to be like that at all, she doesn’t want it to feel like she’s just stringing him along. Except when she’d stammered and tripped and almost burst open a declaration of _ something _ on that day of admitting her inhuman fears, he’d placed a single finger to her lips and said,

“Take your time. You can tell me everything or nothing if you prefer but I want your music to be as lovely as your words so let's take it _legato_.”

So there’s nothing exceptionally romantic about it except that it’s at a quiet but lovingly decorated ice-cream parlour owned by an adorable elderly man who’s almost as charming as André. Timothée only winks when she mentions André and reassures her that she can definitely pick her own ice-cream. So it’s one of the most romantic things Luka could have ever done even when he does bang his leg against the table and complains about growth spurts.

They’re served some of the best chocolate she’s ever tasted and Luka laughs with her when she melts with the first, blissful taste.

“Good, no?” he says, eyes crinkling.

“The best.”

Breathing is harder but it’s also easier because she knows she can take it one inhale at a time.

* * *

Spring floats by like a frenzied breeze.

Between Hawk Moth-Gabriel Agreste watch, Akumas, her projects, Akumas, friends, and Akumas, she doesn’t realise how quickly time passes until it’s only a couple of months until she’ll potentially graduate from collège.

Logically, she knows that this is her final year in Collège Françoise Dupont. Knows that after this year, she’ll be fifteen and not in collége anymore. In the beginning of the year, there had even been a small speech from M. Damocles for her grade to prosper and study extra hard because their future is on the line. It wasn't even an excuse that she'd basically blanked through the whole thing, dead tired from Akuma after Akuma, because she _ went _ to the School Fairs and the four separate Q&A classes woven throughout the semester, all focused on their upcoming graduation. She had attended _ all _ of those, taken the pamphlets and scooped up the freebies and loved the free food, but any thoughts of lycée been quickly shoved back on the priority list when the inevitable Akumas finally appeared and cancelled the rest of those info days.

Logically, she knew but it still hits her like a truck when confronted with the reality.

So when M. D'Argencourt sits everyone down to announce lycée plans and prospects, Marinette almost throws up in horror. Instead, she grips her pencil so hard it snaps in half, the _crack_ringing through the room. For his part, M. D'Argencourt pauses only for a second as she scrambles to grab the pieces before he continues on with his announcement. He says something along the lines of hoping they’ve been thinking about the future for the past year and reassures their unanimous blank faces that, even for those who haven’t, there’s a few days until the student interview. Marinette was a bit too preoccupied with trying not to hyperventilate into a coma.

Marinette’s going to be a lycéenne in a year's time.

Well, she’s going to be a lycéenne _ if _ the teacher and administer council doesn’t immediately sign her off to repeat a year because of her lateness and, in general, abysmal attendance. But it’s not _ too _ bad, she tries to reassure herself and pretends she’s definitely not sweating like a global storm and her heart isn’t thudding like an earthquake. Despite the lateness and random disappearances, she still attends school everyday since the beginning, only fully skipping when she fell ill and had a doctor’s certificate or when an Akuma attacks. So surely, if she passes and gets her le Diplôme National du Brevet, she can probably get into lycée.

_ Passes. _

Her_ grades. _

She’s going to_ fail. _

A hole doesn’t swallow her up but her arms are good enough at the moment.

Alya nudges her and feeds her grapes when Marinette could only turn her head to stare woodenly at her best friend.

“C’mon," she says, "eat some lunch before you pass out into an oven or something. Your dad’s going to be worried if he sees you so mopey." When that doesn't work, Alya slings an arm around her shoulders and slumps onto her, the way Marinette loves. "What are you even mopey for? You’ll be fine! We’ll cram the life out of this before the exam and definitely get our DNBs.”

Marinette reluctantly smiles and eats and is completely not reassured.

“What are you thinking of doing?” she asks.

“Lycée général and I’m going to pick a humanities stream after seconde,” Alya rattles off flawlessly.

Marinette tilts her head and squints. “How much did you research?”

She flashes a grin, eyes clear as glass marbles as they sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. Her intelligence crystallized into one-in-a-millennium diamonds. “Got interviews from my older sister, everyone’s big sibling, _ and _ the teachers as well.” Winks. “Especially, those on the council.”

She really doesn't deserve Alya.

“As expected of Paris’ future ace reporter!” Marinette laughs and stands up, holding her hand out to Alya. “Let’s go set up the projector. Hey Kim, Max, Alix! Can you guys call the others to the classroom? Alya’s got the scoop on lycée!”

* * *

After a whispered discussion throughout French class, much to M. Haprèle’s consternation, Alya, Mylène and Max have teamed up and will send out transcripts to the group chat. Max reassures everyone he and Markov will have extra material by the end of the week. 

With her friends’ hands on her back, by the time school’s done, Marinette feels about as confused as before but there’s a ‘post-breaktown’ clarity settling into her shoulders and she knows she has people to find the answers with. And isn’t that all that matters?

“Look who’s here,” Juleka says from beside her. The note in her voice clues Marinette before she even has to look up.

Like the warmth of a glittering ocean at dawn, Luka looks up and grins at her from the entrance, waving at the others with a casual hand as his other tugs the guitar bag-strap onto his shoulder. He’d probably been playing along the school steps for a good half hour and even more before the last bell thought of going off, charming all the passersby.

Flipping through his calendar was a revolution when she realised it was all but an aesthetic prop instead of an actual function to his life (which, _ crazy _). But at least Marinette now knows Luka Couffaine lives a free-flowing schedule with the Captain.

She wonders if growing up on The Liberty, on something as gentle as the Seine, was what made him so calm and even-tempered. Had made Juleka quiet and kind. And maybe that meant the Captain had lived on the wide horizon of the ocean, freedom all around, and the pattern is still printed into her beaming grin. Sometimes, she can smell sea salt.

There’s a barebones routine somewhere in rotation of tutors every few days and Wednesday outings to José’s shop with Marinette but, mostly, he’s maintained himself a pretty easygoing rowboat in life. So when he doesn’t hang out with Marinette or Kitty Section, she understands that he spends most of his days alternating his boat between music and meditation. At least, that’s what his selfies shows. Or he’s hanging around his giant assortment of middle-aged friends. That's what José’s selfies show.

The true extent of Luka's old people association is adorable and she’s a bit sad to have had only recently discovered it.

Once upon a rainy little day, Luka had played a nostalgic song and they flipped through his family photo album. Near the end, there’d been a particularly adorable picture of him, a couple of years younger and chubbier, surrounded by about fifteen different elderly individuals. His round dough cheeks were red, probably from being pinched too many times, but, even then, he smiled with the same calm temperament he does now. Flicking her eyes across the photograph with a softness surrounding her heart, she had immediately recognised José hand in hand with her wife and, off to the side, Timothée with his arm around André, but the others she has never met. Marinette wonders if Master Fu would like to meet Luka.

“You’re an old soul, aren’t you?” she says and he laughs and plays something that sounded a lot like getting pinched and patted on the head too many times to count. Like having a single mom and a younger sister. Like holding a young Juleka’s hand to walk across the street. Like holding the groceries and making the shopping list when you’re seven so it’s mostly cereal and forgetting the milk. By the closing of that rainy day, she learns more about his memories in the song he plays than in any family album he could have shown her.

And then, some days, he's pulled into random jobs here and there when some acquaintance he’s met probably only once but charmed enough suddenly calls him in need of his help. Luka accepts each time, barely needing to look at his empty calendar before he agrees with a casual shrug. Sometimes it’s related to music like when he had to sub in as a backup guitarist for three different bands in a single weekend or when he had to play on a small stage for some coffee event but other times she’s stumbled into him dressed as a pumpkin, or as an assistant ice-skating instructor, or reciting poetry to a group of single mothers as he helped them cook lunch.

Even so, these were mostly surprise encounters she can’t really write down and memorise. So, in predictable Marinette-fashion, she overstressed about working around her busy. jam-packed days and his sporadic timetable and panicked her way through a dozen different nightmares about growing distant and lonely and forgetting each other.

But in the end, it worked out because instead of marking his schedule into hers, he had came over one day and copied hers down into his tiny, dusty no-longer-a-prop-calendar.

‘_ There _,’ he said as he penned in her last activity with a beaming smile and she had stared at him with wide, wide eyes and a wide, wide heart.

Nothing could burn starlight into her chest as much as he’s made it a point of following to her schedule.

So when she comes out to the courtyard and spots him there grinning like the distant shine of a dearly beloved oasis, she knows he had probably been practicing on the school steps for a long time before she had finished her last class. Waiting for her.

Making her way to his side, she bids farewell to all her classmates, ignores their pointed looks and Alya’s Look and, _ especially _ , Juleka’s bemused _ Look, _ before greeting him properly with faire la bise. Nowadays, she has to reach her tiptoes to reach his cheeks. It really does feel like, everyday, he’s growing taller and taller which is _ entirely _ unfair because she hasn’t even grown since she was twelve-turning-thirteen and she’s gonna peak at 150cm, isn’t she?

Leaning back down, she smiles at him. “Where to today, M. Luka?”

“Mme. Marinette,” he says, bowing low and taking her hand to brush an airy kiss along it. It flutters her heart and he’s entirely _ unfair _because that was cheesy even for him. He looks up with a wink that's about as endearing as a cat. “A gentleman does not ruin the surprise.”

She snorts and pulls him out of the school building.

* * *

It takes twenty minutes of walking and getting lost because they caught up in talking about concerts and then another ten minutes but he leads her to the Jardin des Tuileries.

“This is amazing!” she says, swinging around again and again to look behind each towering tree. Maybe there's something fantastical as faeries or maybe there's flowers or maybe she's just trying to spot the secret histories buried in these lush greens. There's a maze or something here, she was sure. These old places usually held the same tastes in entertainment and getting lost in nature is a flavour they've all dined. A Fifth Walk through to the twentieth-first century. “I’ve never been to this garden.”

“Neither have I,” he says and points out the delightful line of tulips behind a set of trees. “Do you like it?"

"I like going anywhere with you," she says and doesn't have to imagine his breath catching. Doesn't have to imagine it at all when stares at her star-filled eyes.

"Oh." He blushes so beautifully and Marinette wants to capture exact shade of dust pink spreading across his face, stitch it into her memory and love it on a crêpe dress of her making. With a smile shy as a private reverie, he turns and leads her to the centre of the garden where the Grand Bassin Rond sits, beautiful and sparkling in the sunlight. "Ah, um-" he clears his throat, "Anyways, Alya kinda texted me, saying you were getting stressed about something. I’m not the best as you know but do you want to talk about it?"

"I guess it's just-" She swirls her hand in the air, trying to grab the right words and the right worries. There's a thousand worries a day and there's a thousand words but, for now: "Graduation is coming up and I’m not ready to deal with it," she says and he hums a sweet note of patience, meanders around the fountain twice with her by his side as she drafts up her thoughts. “How did you decide to be homeschooled?”

“It wasn’t a shocking discovery if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, lips smoothing up into a smile. “It was halfway through sixième and I realised I kind of just _ hated _ school life." At her concerned look, he smiles and boops her nose with a rough forefinger. "Sorry, that was a bit aggressive right? But you don't need to worry, Marinette. No one was _ bullying _ me and the teachers weren’t like incompetent but..." he shrugs. "I guess I never really connected with anyone so most schooldays I just wanted to rush home and be with Jules and Maman or go hang out with José and her wife. It was exceptionally boring and... _lonely_.”

As he talks, she imagines the boy in the photo with his fat, dumpling cheeks and bright beaming grin and tries to think of him as sad and miserable. Her heart _ aches _, trembles with unbearable pain and a hopeless frustration to comfort. She tightens her hold on his hand because she understands loneliness, too. Knows what it’s like when school just condensed down into time spent away from home and the barrier to the safety of family.

“I couldn’t be motivated to do just about anything at school but that was fine for me, at least. Like, what did a couple of failing grades matter?" There's a slight deprecation to his voice, a little mellowness ringing around she hasn't ever heard but he continues on with his head held straight. "I thought it'd be okay, that I'd be alright. But then, as I went to school everyday and the loneliness started eating me up, that _ ‘unmotivation’ _ started affecting home life as well and that’s when stuff got really messed up. I stopped doing chores, stopped talking and I started shutting myself behind the curtains for days instead of a couple hours. I guess was just real depressed then.

“It must have really pissed off Juleka,” he says and smiles despite the misery in these memories. “I only realised how awful a situation I’ve created for everyone when she started crying, demanding me why I was being so mean, and then Maman started tearing up as well after she barged in, hearing the crying. That’s when I knew I needed to change the situation and when Maman made me a deal. I’d go to counselling and start meditation and she’d pulled me out of school.” He shrugs his shoulders once more and looks back down to her, “So here I am, sixteen and homeschooled.”

“I’m sorry,” she says and feels helpless.

He laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear as he says, “It’s not your fault. Marinette.”

She shakes her head and squeezes his hand. “Still, I’m sorry you had to experience that.”

His eyes crinkle, aquamarine blue eyes glistening with a heart-racing affection. “Thank you but did I- ah, help you any?”

“Yeah," she says, softening as she nods because, of course, he cared only about helping her. "Thanks for telling me all that.”

He smiles, lips shining strawberry sweet. “I'm always glad to talk to you.”

She melts and loves the way his words ring with a clear sincerity.

They walk around the giant pond and she spots maze hedges on the opposite end.

She pulls him along and turns to look at him as he takes in the sights.

“Oh, and Luka?”

He hums a note she thinks is an A or something (she's trying to learn a bit of the theory but it's definitely language she isn't instantly groovy with and Nino plus Kitty Section definitely laugh at her for it). He's easily distracted by a passing ladybug, laser focused as it floats around him in an adorable arc. It lands on his nose and he goes cross-eyed looking at it with this open look of complete wonder.

She giggles and reaches for the ladybug and, as they all do, this one easily crawls onto her hand. She smiles as she turns to him, offering him a new friend. He stares at her as if she'd just created ice-cream, wide eyed and open adoration. Her smile stretches even further and she says, “If nothing else, we’re friends, alright?”

“Yeah,” he says, beaming as open as clear skies. “Yeah, we are.”

* * *

“Hello,” M. D'Argencourt begins awkwardly as they start the student interview. He’s cool and collected in front of the fencing club but, apparently, setting foot behind the teacher’s podium and staring into a classroom still leaves him unbalanced. Stiffly, as if he was reciting from a speech he'd practiced twice, he said in awkward monotone, “Marinette, you’re a bright and engaging student and I’m proud to have you as a member of our school. As your teacher, I’m recommending you to go to a lycée professionnel, specifically one that can offer you some fashion-oriented degree so that you may pursue your fashion career. I assure you that the more hands on and internship focused style will suit your practicalities. But, what do you think?”

She nods along. “I was actually thinking about a lycée professionnel, too.”

“Ah, yes," he says and finally smiles. He looks actually proud when he says, "You and your friends have done a great job in preparing, I am truly honoured to be your teacher. Do you have any objections, M. Dupain, Mme. Cheng?”

“Whatever Marinette is happy with,” Papa says.

“Likewise,” Maman continues, rubbing an affectionate hand across Marinette’s hair.

“Marinette?” he asks.

She smiles. “Could I have a list of the prospective lycées?”

* * *

Despite being a master jeweller and surrounded by some of the most breathtaking and delicately-crafted jewellery, Angelika Kühn wears only one accessory piece on her body.

It’s on her left hand, circling around her rough ring finger like an ever-blooming flower, and Marinette only notices when Angelika suddenly hisses and shakes her bright red hand.

There’s shouting in her head and it’s panic screaming.

“Luka, quickly, get the First Aid,” Marinette calls out, with a forced calm, and he’s already off to the bathroom, skidding into the wall because, despite his chill outer appearance, he's secretly panicking and scared and isn't always the best at dealing with hurt people. She'd gotten a paper cut once and he'd brought ten bandages from his newly restocked First Aid Kit which she had found out was actually a giant First Aid Cabinet and an extra First Aid Bag for good measure. She takes Angelika’s wrist and rushes for the sink. “Hurry, hurry, we gotta cool this off.”

“Ouch, ouch,” Angelika says, wrinkling her eyebrows like a petulant child. Manon had shown that face too many times and it's hilarious to see it so starkly replicated on Angelika's aged face. It makes the panic-panic-panic quiet just the littlest bit in her head and Marinette breathes relief and humour back into her lungs.

“Oh, Angelika,” Marinette says because she’s a part-time superhero and full-time worrywart, carefully wetting the burn with a gentle stream of cold water. But, she smiles in the end and knows she’s breaking the illusion. “You ought to be more careful.”

The old madame laughs with ringing, belly-deep notes and uses her unharmed hand to pinch Marinette’s cheek. It's wrinkled and small and oh so soft when she cups Marinette's cheek and grins, large as the sun. “Simply adorable. If you were about thirty years older, you’d have sounded exactly like my wife, right down to the tone!”

“It’s why José’s got so many grey hairs,” Luka says and giggles, coming up next to them and handing Marinette the First Aid Kit and, even better, an aloe vera moisturiser.

“Hush!” Angelika says and swats at Luka's shoulder. "I'm not that bad!”

“Mhmm.”

“_ Maybe, _ just _ maybe _ a little- but! You were simply as bad, my nibble snail. I still remember when you were an even smaller Schnuckelschneke. Would you like to hear, Marinette?"

Marinette nods eagerly because Luka looks happy, crinkling his eyes and taking turns with Angelika to tell his daredevil days of jumping off the kitchen counter onto the battered sofa. Butter soft nostalgia lingering in the edges of both their eyes.

She busies herself with patting Angelika's hand dry and setting out to properly treat it, listening with an open ear as Luka laughs and talks about memories like he's dipping his hand into clean freshwater. Like the warmth under a tucked blanket.

That's when she finally notices. A delicate golden ring, inlaid with the deepest sapphires and twinning around small, sparkling diamonds. It glints in the kitchen’s LED lights and Marinette wonders how she could have missed this detail until now.

"Like it?" Angelika asks, cutting off her reminiscence.

"It's beautiful."

“Oh, I know,” she says and proudly. “Made it myself even way before we could actually get married.”

The craftsmanship is impeccable, an outstanding and timeless beauty, and Marinette knows it would have taken months for Angelika to design, to perfect, to delicately trace over and over again -- the image of her love on her finger and José’s. Marinette imagines that the ring, brand new and only recently made (because Angelika was an impatient one), as it’s carefully slide onto her wife’s hand. She thinks it’d have been beautiful but not as beautiful as it was now, several decades later, as the ring shines on with the years of wear and micro scratches circling the gems as much as the gold band. A lifetime together wrapped up into it.

“Why sapphires?” Marinette asks.

Luka moves off to prepare the rest of José’s surprise birthday party and she belatedly realises that the ring he always wears, the one she constantly fiddles with, the one she loves as much as the feel of his hand, was probably Angelika’s make as well. Along with the leather-band on his wrist and the ice-cream he constantly has stocked up the freezer, she's only just realising how much he surrounds himself with the people he cherishes. With so many forms of passion and affection. She wonders with every new face she meets, how much more will she discover of him and she can't wait to find out.

“Her eyes,” Angelika answers and a fond smile curves her kind eyes into a gentle love even after all these years. She describes to Marinette the proposal story and the laughter and the tears and the running away from home, spilling out her love and life story bit by bit.

Despite being a master jeweller and surrounded by some of the most breathtaking pieces of jewellery, Angelika Kühn only needs to wear one accessory piece on her body to be happy.

There's so many different shades of love around Marinette. She has known for a while but in the face of this woman with her love for her wife of thirty plus years (with more than two decades of those unofficial) still ringing, in the face of Angelika-and-José, she learns more and more about love.

“That’s wonderful.”

She connects her eyes to Luka and he smiles back at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a monster of a chapter

**Author's Note:**

> "ml: goodbye+hello flips on the same coin"
> 
> Come to my new [ml tumblr](https://stickynotechan.tumblr.com/) for a chat :)


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